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Desperate_Food7354 OP t1_j3mtkw8 wrote

Reply to comment by footurist in Arguments against calling aging a disease make no sense relative to other natural processes we attempt to fix. by Desperate_Food7354

If it was never labeled as a disease nobody dare fix it, but then again neither is scar tissue, if we are going to call natural processes that eventually lead to our death not a “disease” then we shouldn’t be selective on which one’s. Leave scar tissue in the heart and lungs alone, it’s natural.

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footurist t1_j3nc2l5 wrote

This notion is similar to Richard Dawkins intentionally being an atheist despite acknowledging that agnosticism is actually closer to the truth for utilitarian reasons.

I take issue with this general approach, since I think it would be better to work on the root cause ( nobody taking action if it's not wrongfully called a disease ), but in this case I'm way more willing to let that imperfection go than in Dawkins's case.

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TheTomatoBoy9 t1_j3o5ts3 wrote

Wouldn't it make sense to simply call it entropy? I mean, we fight entropy every day, so it makes sense to fight the entropy of our body. Doesn't have to be a disease, which is an abnormal condition.

Entropy is quite normal, but that doesn't mean you have to do nothing about it.

Now, a big part of the anti aging fight will be about fighting diseases that increasingly occur with age and degradation

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Desperate_Food7354 OP t1_j3oa21b wrote

Life only exists because it goes against entropy. Yes aging is a form of entropy that our body doesn’t fight against because it’s a waste of energy to do in the wild when you’re just going to die of infection or predation anyways. Calling aging not a disease because it’s entropy is like saying autophagy of the brain isn’t a disease either because destruction of your memory and functionality is just entropy. All diseases are entropy when you have that frame of reference are they not? A heart not working, lungs, all just going against natural function, so call it entropy and not disease, labeling it as a disease is the only way we get the FDA to approve of treatments for it.

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TheTomatoBoy9 t1_j3ob6tu wrote

Mmh, not sure I agree. A cancer that grows due to the increase of cancerous cells isn't them degrading. The diseases may cause entropy, but are they really entropy themselves?

When you fight a disease, you aren't just fighting the symptoms and the degradation of your body. You are fighting what went haywire.

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Desperate_Food7354 OP t1_j3oc8mj wrote

Cancer and Aging are very similar. Degradation of function and aging are the same thing, what is cancer? Degradation of proper function, aging is measured by more methyl groups being present on the epigenome, what does this mean? It means that some proteins cannot be transcribed, which in turn mess with the function of cells, for instance: aging (more methyl groups) turning off a protein that inhibits cellular replication therefore resulting in -> cancer.

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